


About a Calm Before the Storm

by Keatulie



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, no plot tbh, snorks change colours, sorta! it's before the events of the 2nd book, trans characters. it's not relevant or even really mentioned I just wanted to tell you 8)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23128702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keatulie/pseuds/Keatulie
Summary: Before their encounter with the Moominfamily, and before their perilous journey under the Comet, Snufkin and the Snork siblings have a quiet early Autumn breakfast.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 39





	About a Calm Before the Storm

'I woke up with a terrible pain this morning, you know,' announced Snufkin conversationally, crawling backwards on his paws and knees out of the yellow tent.

The Snork siblings, who sat baking their sweet morning apples over a fire in the shade of the silver birches, regarded him with an odd sort of fondness. Like one might do a small animal pawing determinedly at their own reflection in a looking glass.

Snufkin, in the two days they'd known him, rarely ever said 'hello' or even 'goodbye' when greeting others; often, he would just fall into a ramble about whatever came to mind in that moment.

In fact, when they’d first crossed paths the other evening after he’d sprung himself from jail, he wasted no time in telling them all about it. And then helped himself to half their bucket of minnows.

The Snork Maiden was the first to understand what his problem may be.

'A tummy-pain, was it? Would you like me to brew more tea?' she offered kindly; her brother, meanwhile, paled and suddenly grumbled something indistinct under his breath, busying himself with stoking the campfire and fidgeting with his glasses bashfully.

Fortunately enough, Snufkin shook his head. 'No - thank you, but that's not it. I thought I'd slept funny on a stone or something like that. But you won’t believe what I’ve found instead.’

'Look!'

As he bent and lifted up his striped skirts, the Snork Maiden shrieked and grew literally pink at the ears, covering up her eyes to spare his decency.

Really! This was no way to act in front of delicate young maidens, especially ones who had been so hospitable, she thought.

The Snork snapped ‘round momentarily at her yell, then tutted again and returned to the fire.

When she dared to take a peek between her fingers, Snufkin was standing (still fully clothed, she was relieved to see) with his head between his legs looking at her from upside-down. Dangling in front of his jolly face was a small, but unmistakable, furry black tail.

Retrieving her apple from where she’d tossed it in shock, the Snork Maiden shivered as if to shake the colour out of her head, and inspected it curiously.

‘Well, there you go,’ she said, unable to think of much else.

It was only a stubby thing. Nothing much to shout about. Though he seemed pleased as punch with its appearance, so she didn’t say anything unkind.

'I had to cut up my trousers,’ he explained, righting himself. ‘They squeezed something awful.'

‘But didn’t you prepare a hole before?’ said the Snork, who had judged the conversation fit to return to. ‘Tails don't grow overnight.'

‘Don’t they?' he said in surprise, for Snufkin thought that was exactly what had happened. 'I can't say that I've noticed it before.'

'You didn't notice your own tail?' he asked incredulously.

'How often does one look at their own bottom?' Snufkin retorted, though only because he was feeling a bit silly now. But he was soon cheered up when he caught sight of its bristle flicking angrily in the corner of his eye, which then slowed to a contented swish. 'It's a smart thing, isn't it! Just the right size, too. I might say even better than yours.'

Now it was the Snork Maiden's turn to look affronted; a dangerous orange hue crept up the fur of her neck. 'And why is that?'

'Oh, I meant no offence,' he said quickly. 'It's just that your tails are so long, and I do so much climbing that I could get it trapped in a rock. And wouldn't that be awful?'

'Wouldn't it just,' the Snork said drily. His sister, who had cooled to a mellow green again, hushed discreetly.

'I suppose your parents must have had tails themselves, then. Or at least one had,' she said, changing the subject. The Snork Maiden was rather knowledgeable about genetics, as it happened, from borrowing her brother's books on all manner of sciences, whenever he was too preoccupied to shoo her away from them.

For example – though she’d never seen them for herself, someone in their family must have had her own brown eyes. Sometimes, she would dream of a larger snork with eyes as dark as hot cocoa, and just as warm. The Snork Maiden tried not to have these dreams, as they made her feel strangely sad.

Her brother, on the other hand, had eyes of baby blue, and she would tease him that it was because he hadn’t outgrown being one. His soreness about that may have been why she was discouraged from her studies.

‘My parents? I wouldn’t know,’ replied Snufkin, his expression difficult to gauge – though the question didn’t carry the levity that his normally did, and the Snork Maiden felt rather guilty for stepping so clumsily, especially considering their own situation. They so rarely ran into people like themselves that it was easy to forget that they existed at all. So many other children in the towns they passed through stared up at them in envy at the mention of no parents: ‘how fun!’ they’d gush, ‘what a life!’

Funny; when they’d totter back to their families as the evening came, she’d think the same of them.

'You mean you’re alone?’ she heard herself ask, only as the final words tumbled out realising how sharp they may seem for such a delicate matter. The Snork glanced over the flames for a moment, but said nothing. ‘We are, too, you see,’ she hurriedly added, covering up her loose words with what she hoped were empathetic ones.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. The Snork Maiden had her brother, and him herself for company. Foundling homes had also tried to take them in before, but they could never suit their needs. Much too fussy places, they were, with strict bedtimes and lessons on keeping one’s coat under control.

The Snork - who had a limit on particularities and detested their stifling environments - had broken them out of a fair number of institutions when they were smaller, including one horrible summer where they had lived separate.

Those few months had been ghastly enough; but to be entirely alone in the world and know no different ...

She supposed it wasn’t much of a surprise that no one had been around for Snufkin; he was a resourceful little beast for certain, but he didn’t seem to know much of anything obvious – that tails couldn’t sprout overnight, that one couldn’t die from too much cowslip wine, and how the toy boat they’d found afloat on a nearby river had probably not been a real one that’d shrunk in the wash. (she decided not to press this, as they’d only just met and it would have been rude – and he did seem to be only little).

‘So you walk all these wild treks you mention by yourself?’ gasped the Snork Maiden, turning her questioning of his loneliness into one of intrigue.

As expected, he ate it right up, face beaming with pride as he leapt to his feet beside the campfire, almost upsetting the outer kindling with the end of his boot.

‘Yes – and sail!’ crowed Snufkin, making a sweeping motion with his paws. ‘Across the country and further still. How beautiful the emerald waves look when you’re swept up in the middle of them. I adore the ocean, you know; it’s very dear to me.’

‘All by yourself!’ she repeated, somewhere between admiration and worry. Why, if she wasn’t around to keep Snork out of trouble – well, she dread to think. 'It's luck you haven't encountered a pesky mermaid or a terrible nibling.'

'Nibling?' echoed Snufkin cautiously, as he'd already met a few merpeople in his time and they seemed like perfectly nice folk. 'Why, are they so monstrous?'

'Ooh, yes,' she whispered vehemently, revelling in the role of a gruesome storyteller. 'Little frightful things. Quite like a beaver, but not exactly; they eat people's noses right off their faces if they don't like the length.'

'I shouldn't like to meet one, then!' he exclaimed, grasping at his pointed nose in alarm. And he had reason to be so - it was covered in a sort of dark, downy fluff with flecks of red, and seemed comically large for his head, like a woolly bear had curled up to sleep on his face.

She was sure that if a nibling ever came across him, it would strike without mercy like a woodpecker on its next meal.

She felt a bit wicked just then. He was wide-eyed and freshly fuzzy in a way gave one the impression of an unusually tall baby. At the mere thought of something endangering the little snufkin, the Snork Maiden suddenly lost the humour in her tale, and instead felt the urge to hand him her apple.

Too eager, he grabbed at the fruit itself rather than its stick and frowned when he jerked away a sore paw.

Smiling, the Snork Maiden took a fresh one from their harvested pile for herself and jammed another twig in its core.

‘Don’t worry,’ she giggled, flicking up his lumpy green hat. ‘I’m sure if you did see a nibling, you could protect yourself with this’. It was certainly big enough to shield him from anything; it was a wonder it didn’t fall down to his neck.

Snufkin gave her a scandalised look and pulled down its brim with a free paw, as though fearing one might arrive any moment. ‘Never; it might be eaten. I’d hate to lose it.’

‘Really?’ asked the Snork Maiden. There were more attractive hats.

‘Yes, it’s special,’ he insisted, noticing the disparaging expressions on their faces. ‘I've had it since I was born.’ Or at least as far back as he could remember.

'Must've been a funny sight on a baby,’ her brother chuckled to himself, choking it back when her foot caught his shin.

Snufkin ignored him and went on. ‘It’s very soft. It’s felted, I believe.’

‘What kind?’ said the Snork Maiden, twiddling the twig in her fingers. It was looking very worn at the ends. Perhaps she could mend it.

‘Don't know. Wool? Perhaps muskrat fur. Maybe it isn’t felt at all. I wonder if it’s cotton.’

‘Well, whatever it is,’ she interrupted, feeling that he may start rounding off every material under the sun, ‘it’s very – very unique,’ she decided (as that was what one said when one couldn’t find anything nicer).

The Snork Maiden then blew on her apple a few times before testing a quick crunch, and got to her feet. ‘But it would look better with another crown. I think I shall go flower-picking. Do you want anything in particular, Snufkin?’

‘Oh well!’ he said, looking flattered and a bit overwhelmed. ‘Let me think: I like peonies, and buttercups, and bellflowers, and violets, and—'

‘Just about everything,’ she finished, happily. ‘I’ll get us all a fancy bouquet then. Enjoy yourselves.’

As she turned to leave, the Snork stared, bug-eyed, making desperate glances and head twitches between them both. If she scurried off then he’d be left alone with this strange little chatterbox - which he suspected was her plan exactly. His sister, in turn, pressed her lips together and shook her head, gesturing toward him. They carried on this silent performance for a few moments longer, while an oblivious Snufkin sat hypnotised by his crackling apple and thought about how nice plants were.

In the end, the Snork Maiden somehow won out their quiet debate and strutted away to the meadow across the hills.

The Snork wasn’t happy about this. And he wasn’t going to get caught in any silly discussions, either. Friendly stars, he'd gone on about the night before. How could gas be friendly?

Swallowing down the last of his breakfast, he clambered over the dry grass and snatched a book from his rucksack where it sat in a small pile with the others, deftly cracking open its spine for emphasis. He winced when he realised what an awful crease that would leave later.

People generally understood to let others be when they had their snouts buried in an enticing book. Snufkin did not. ‘Your sister is very beautiful,’ he sighed around a helping of apple.

‘What?’ the Snork asked sharply.

Snufkin took it as an insult and raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘My sister??’

 _Here we go_ , he thought irritably. It was always the same; they’d travel around, and some useless local boy would trail limply after Snork Maiden like an extra tail. And what’s worse was that she seemed to _enjoy_ the attention. It was a good thing he was there to swat them off like the midges they were.

The Snork really couldn’t understand it; they looked practically identical, yet no one went loopy over him. ‘Listen, I’d better not catch you making goo-goo eyes her,’ he warned, though it didn’t sound nearly as threatening out loud. But they’d heard a scary man say it in an action picture once, and everyone in the story seemed intimidated by _him_.

‘What?’ Snufkin burst out himself, before collapsing into a stupid titter, in the way people do when bringing up a private joke. This annoyed the Snork. It was impolite to leave people out.

He was just about to stress how he was sure that his sister would not be interested, thank you very much, when her yelp once again rang out from somewhere over the tops.

Abandoning the book away from the fire, the Snork came over a fearful shade of sickly green and made for the meadow, with Snufkin flailing after, one paw fishing in his dress for his pocket knife.

'My sister, what on Earth's happened to you?' he cried, carelessly trampling the wild buds in his urgency. The Snork Maiden was standing atop a small rock, glancing fearfully at the ground as though there were sharks were circling beneath her feet.

'Oh,' she mumbled as they approached, glowing a plain white in embarrassment for having made such a fuss. 'I didn't mean to worry you, it's just - take a look for yourselves!'

They looked. The tall purple bellflowers stretching all around them, instead of swaying proudly as they did in the breeze, bowed under a dark, pestilent-looking dust oozing down to the soil.

'Ash,' observed Snufkin immediately, surprising them. 'The kind from volcanoes. The rain brings it down, it mustn't have reached us. But I haven't heard any eruption. How funny.'

None of the children spoke for a time after that, feeling a peculiar sense of unease at the unexplained sludge dotting the pale landscape.

'I don't like this,' said the Snork Maiden quietly. 'It feels like a curse of some kind. Let's break camp and get away.'

The others were inclined to agree, and the three of them returned to their site by the trees in anxious silence.

At the same time, miles and miles away from where the Snorks and the little Snufkin were pulling down their tents, two more young beasts were pulling themselves onto a raft and setting course for the mountains.


End file.
